


Five Golden Rings

by tawg



Series: The Dangers of Dating a High School Principal [4]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Avenger Clint, M/M, Norse gods pick the worst times to visit, Principal Coulson, a little bit saucy, absence makes the heart grow fonder, consistently interrupted, phonesex, workaholics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:36:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As an Agent of SHIELD, Clint has to deal with some pretty severe phone restrictions. Coulson is very understanding. And also a little bit cruel. Or: one mission, five phone calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Golden Rings

When it came to being a SHIELD field agent, the word ‘sacrifice’ was thrown around a lot. There were things that an agent needed to give up in order to do their job. Clint wasn’t sure that ‘sacrifice’ was the right word in his case, because most of the things that he had given up had been things he’d never been very invested in. 

Mobile phones were on that list.

Field agents should not be traceable unless SHIELD wanted them to be, so phones with built in GPS were out. Any phone with a built in camera was a temptation to take photos of things that should not be photographed. One agent posted a group shot to Facebook, and everyone lost their phone privileges altogether. For a long time Clint hadn’t minded. Circus folk hadn’t been big on electronics when he’d left, and all of his work friends were people he saw a little bit too much of in his own opinion. The burner phones that he was given for missions suited him just fine, with the added bonus that he would never have to clear out his inbox because the phone would be destroyed within a week.

And then Clint had gone and gotten himself a boyfriend.

It had been tolerable. Clint was allowed to use up the last of the burner credit if the phone was from a safe mission, and Phil had accepted the news that he would have to wait for Clint to initiate contact with ease. “At least I don’t have to worry about who should call who first.” There were secure lines from SHIELD buildings, including one phone in Stark Tower that Tony consistently tried to sabotage. Clint could call his boyfriend in the evenings, have short conversations with Phil while he tidied his desk at the end of a long day (Clint was of the opinion that Phil spent too much time at work. Phil was of the opinion that Clint was in no position to judge) or chopped vegetables for dinner.

And then Phil had gone and gotten himself golem’d in the leg, and all Clint wanted to do was spend hours on the phone with him and finish that conversation they’d been having about Phil’s cat, Mittens II. But he couldn’t, because there was some stupid surveillance mission for the Avengers and apparently no one else on the team had eyes and Clint didn’t own a mobile phone and small sacrifices really sucked.

So Clint stole Tony’s.

“Hey,” he said when Phil picked up. “Did they patch you up all nice and pretty?”

“They had to put in some stitches, but I asked nicely and they did a little pattern. Kind of like lacework.”

“It sounds very classy,” Clint replied. He was crouched down against a wall in the hanger, with one finger blocking his other ear. “You home yet?”

“Just got in the door. The cat is licking my shoes.”

“Does that mean she missed you?”

“I think it means that I stepped in something tasty.”

“... Cats are gross.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re prejudiced against animals that eat rotting and decaying things.”

“Yeah, you’re right. How totally unreasonable of me,” Clint replied dryly, and he was rewarded with a little puff of sound that was Phil’s laugh. “Ugh, I have to go for classified reasons that have nothing to do with a plane taking off shortly.”

“Enjoy your classified in-flight magazine,” Phil returned. Clint hung up without either of them saying goodbye, which was the norm for them. He held Tony’s slim phone with its gaudy red and gold colour scheme in his hand for a long moment, and then pulled himself up out of his crouch and went to slip it back into Tony’s pocket.

Clint stole Tony’s phone again the following afternoon, while they were all getting settled in. He stood on top of their hotel, looking down at the layout of the large town spread before him. It took slightly longer than usual for Phil to take the call. “Mm,” he said when his voice came on the line. “You woke me up.”

“I didn’t pick you for the layabout type.”

“I was in a meeting,” Phil explained.

Clint frowned. “You’re not allowed to be working until that leg heals.”

“Don’t worry,” Phil replied. “I can assure you that no work actually gets done during meetings.”

Clint forced a smile onto his face. “Yeah, I hear that.” If he listened carefully, he could pick up a slight echo on Coulson’s end of the line. He was probably standing in a hallway. Clint wondered how Phil managed fusing the necessity of crutches with his suits and ties. It was Phil, so he probably did it really, really well.

“Are you anywhere nice?” Phil asked. Clint’s expression slipped into melancholy. He’d love to be able to answer a question with another question. _Have you ever been to Europe? Do you like mountains?_ But even if Tony swore black and blue that his phone was unhackable, Clint wasn’t about to take stupid risks by dropping hints during a phone call to his boyfriend.

“It’s nice so far,” Clint replied. “Which is nice. Most of the places that I visit are un-nice.”

“Un-nice?” Phil enquired.

“Very un-nice.”

“Well, that’s not nice at all.”

“Exactly,” Clint said with a firm nod. “How’s New York holding up without me?”

When Phil replied his voice had an interesting quality to it, warm and low and coiling. “Not as nice as it could be.”

Clint didn’t know what to say, and the silence between them held for a long moment. Charged, but not uncomfortable. “I’ve got to get back to work,” Clint eventually said with a sigh.

“So should I.”

“You liar,” Clint shot back playfully. “You’re going to go nap your way through a meeting.”

“Right,” Phil agreed. “It’s extremely hard work, sleeping through a room full of people arguing about bake sales.”

This was the same man who had gone up against reanimated museum exhibits and brought down a golem, sounding as close to downtrodden as Phil ever sounded at the prospect of making it through a meeting. “Are committees your kryptonite?” Clint asked, a teasing edge in his voice.

“I’m afraid that information is classified,” Phil replied. His expressionless, secret agent voice was almost as good as Clint’s, and much better than Steve’s.

“I’ll uncover your secrets one day,” Clint replied in a villainous voice.

“You’re welcome to try,” Phil replied in the same bland voice filled with sharp inflections. And Clint was tempted to take him up on that invitation, to tie Phil up and spend a long, slow weekend making that mildness crack open and reveal something far less controlled. 

Clint shifted uncomfortably. “Okay,” he said brusquely. “Really going now, before this turns into phone sex.” And he hung up on the sound of Phil laughing softly.

It was two full days before Clint managed to call Phil again. Two long, boring days of staring down the sight of his rifle at a boring-ass lake, waiting for something to happen. Tony was allowed to saunter off through the town, dragging Bruce to expensive restaurants and historical sites and probably also to places that were actually interesting. But Hawkeye was their sharp-shooter and their lookout and so Clint had to bond with his rifle and stay on the comms. 

“Hey,” he said with a sigh when Phil picked up. “You got a moment?”

“Mm, maybe,” Phil replied. He sounded almost lazy, and there were some odd acoustics coming from his end of the call. “I can be convinced to have a moment.”

“Where are you?”

“In the bath.”

“... Seriously? You’re seriously in the bath right now?” There was the sound of splashing water in reply. “Well, I was going to ask you what you were wearing, but you’ve gone and thwarted that plan.”

“You could still ask me,” Phil replied reasonably. “You just might not get a long answer.”

“Alright then.” Clint resettled himself, keeping an eye on the lake. He licked his lips before asking, “What are you wearing?”

“I’ve got my reading glasses on, do they count?”

“You wear glasses?”

“Sometimes. I have the bad habit of holding a book about two inches from my nose if I don’t.” Phil had a mild, quiet voice during conversation. It was separate from his no-nonsense principal voice without being a different beast altogether. Clint pressed Tony’s phone harder to his ear, determined to catch as many sounds of conversation as possible.

“What are you reading?” Clint asked, and then kicked himself, because discussing literature took them away from the ‘what are you wearing’ conversation. But then, Clint was pretty sure that particular topic wasn’t going to escape him entirely.

“The Twilight Saga,” Phil replied with a heavy sigh.

“That’s based on a movie, right? Why are you reading it?”

“It was suggested as a class text for English. Apparently all of the cool kids have already read it, so there are a lot of copies on sale at the moment. It would be a cheap text to fold into the school library.”

“Oh. Is it any good?”

Phil was silent for a while. “I think that any book that gets kids reading is a good book,” he said carefully. 

“That sounds like a very diplomatic response,” Clint replied.

“It’s a very diplomatic situation. I have two English teachers and they’re at one another’s throats over this idea.”

“Your job sounds annoying,” Clint observed.

“It has it perks.”

“Like what?”

“Sometimes I get to supervise excursions to museums and do thousands of dollars of damage to enchanted dead animals.”

“Hmm, speaking of exciting times, I believe you were telling me what you were wearing?”

Phil’s voice was warm and lazy as he replied. “Yes, I do seem to remember us having that conversation.”

“Glasses were mentioned,” Clint prompted.

“Oh good,” Phil replied. “I’d hate to think that I’d forgotten them. How should we proceed from there?”

“A good question,” Clint mused. “Since we’ve started with the glasses, maybe we should go from head to toe?”

“From my head _directly_ to my toes? Or were you suggesting a progression down the body?”

“I’m a progressive kind of guy,” Clint replied. “We may as well be orderly about this. Unless you’re wearing some amazing socks in the bath that I need to know about immediately?”

“I don’t know that it’s of _immediate_ importance,” Phil replied. “I’d hate to unveil that information before its time.”

“Well then, are you wearing a tie?”

“No tie.”

“I’ve only seen you once without a tie. It’s not a bad look.”

“I don’t know if this would be an improvement over the ‘mauled by Gregory’ look.”

“I’m sure it’s a great look,” Clint replied, letting his voice drop. “Are you wearing a jacket?”

“No jacket today,” Phil replied. Clint closed his eyes and imagined Phil, stretched out in a bath, fully clothed. He mentally subtracted the jacket and tie. It was a pretty appetizing look.

“What about shirt?” Clint asked. “One of your cute little button-ups?”

Phil huffed a laugh. “Completely devoid of a shirt at the moment, cute or otherwise.”

Clint smiled, took the time to imagine Phil shirtless. Wet and shirtless. He made an effort to incorporate all of the things he’d observed about Phil Coulson, Fearless Education Administrator. The way he held himself, the muscle at his biceps, the shape of his torso. Clint bit his lip, made a happy humming sound in his throat. “What about a belt?” he asked. “Do you have a belt?”

“Hm, let me check...” Clint could hear the soft sounds of Phil shifting in the tub, wondered if he was miming examining his waist, or if he were stretching languidly, making himself comfortable. “This is a little embarrassing, but I also seem to be missing a belt.”

“You know, I’ve never had one of these kinds of conversations before, but I’m _pretty_ sure there should be some clothing talk in here somewhere.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Probably clothes that you are wearing. Since this is a conversation about what you are, in fact, wearing.”

“I see.”

Clint exaggerated a sigh. “We should probably soldier on. I mean, we’ve come this far.”

“That’s true. Can’t give up now.”

“Well then, what about pants? Are you wearing pants?”

“I think you’re going to be disappointed in me,” Phil replied.

“And why is that?”

“Well, to be perfectly truthful...” Clint held his breath, his body buzzing on the line just before arousal, his mind wanting to leap ahead and Clint carefully holding it in place. He had Tony’s phone pressed tight against his ear, and when Phil inhaled to speak, Clint heard it as a low gasp, a soft noise that made his muscles cry out to tense and flex. Clint licked his lips and-

And the mission he had so impatiently been waiting for crashed down into the lake in front of him. “Oh fucking balls,” he cussed. 

Tony’s voice cut over Phil’s, because of course Tony could override any phone call on his own damn phone. “Nice early warning you gave us, Hawks.”

“Shut up.”

“No, I’m serious. The way you let us know that the alien god we have been waiting for _three days_ to nab was coming? That was really helpful.”

Clint thumbed the ‘end call’ button and threw Tony’s phone over his shoulder. Well, at least his blood was already pumping.

It ended up being one of _those_ battles. A clash of cultures, and the kind of fight that really could have been avoided if people just spoke to one another. But Loki never thought to ask anyone if he could drop his pet dragon-snake-that-will-kill-the-world at the local pond for the summer. And then he had the nerve to get pissy when the Avengers stepped in to stop it from eating livestock. And then Thor had to step in because his friends and his little brother were brawling _again_ and that intervention always opened up one hell of a can of Aseir worms. 

Clint was tired, and sore, and muddy. He’d been thrown around by Loki, chewed by a giant snake, dragged through half the mud in the country, and then he’d been stuck on de-Hulking duty because Tony’s armour had been fritzing and the Hulk liked Iron Man fine, but Tony Stark? Not so much. Loki and Thor were drinking at the muddy shore of the lake, singing warsongs and generally keeping the whole East side of the town awake. Clint would probably wind up being the one sent out to tell them to shut the hell up at three in the morning. Clint could feel it in his sore, stiff, cold bones.

He sighed, swiped Tony’s phone from the jumble of gadgets and appliances that formed the ever-present Tony Stark detritus, and limped into the bathroom. He turned on the heat lights, sat on the edge of the bath, and pawed at the fastenings of his boots as he dialled Phil with his other hand.

“Sorry about before,” he said when Phil picked up. “Work always has a way of crashing our dates.”

“It’s alright,” Phil said, sounding a little breathless. “I take it you won.”

“I have no idea what we did out there,” Clint said sullenly. “I bet this is the universe’s way of getting back at me for having a good time. It was all such a- Why are you breathing funny?”

There was a pause. “If the universe is getting back at you for our last conversation,” Phil said carefully. “Then I’m pretty sure that answering this question is only going to lead to more trouble.”

Clint turned that over in his mind as he pulled his boots off, the phone cradled between a shoulder and his ear, wondering what Phil could mean. Then it hit him. “Wait, are you-?”

“No,” Phil replied, a slight hitch in his voice. “Absolutely not. That would be-”

“Hot,” Clint finished for him. “Oh fuck that would be hot. Are you? You are. I can tell.”

“I admit to nothing,” Phil said, but there was a warm, lazy tone wrapped around his voice. A teasing kind of confidence and Clint had no defences against that voice at all.

“Tell me. You have to. You can’t put something like that out there and then hold out on me. Are you-? What-?”

“I’m thinking about you,” Phil replied, in a smooth, almost absent-minded way. “If that helps.”

Clint whined into the phone, and heard Phil take a shuddery breath in response. “What are you thinking?” Clint asked. “In particular?”

“I’m thinking that it’s a shame that you’re not in New York right now.”

Clint balled his hands into fists and then let them relax. He started on the straps of his vest calmly, methodically. “I’d fly myself back there right now if I could,” he said honestly.

“I’m not sure we’d be able to find a coffee shop open this late.”

Clint stiffly peeled his vest off, took a moment to admire the heat from the lights on his still-damp skin. He wondered if Phil would be this warm, what his skin would feel like under Clint’s hands. “I’m not really sure coffee would be at the top of my list of things to do,” he replied.

Phil made a relaxed humming noise that twisted partway into a groan. Clint squeezed his hands into fists again, held for a moment, relaxed. “You’re willing to abandon the coffee date already?”

“I’m not sure I could handle having a third date in a row end with needing to call in the cavalry.”

Phil’s voice was a little rough when he replied, “Third time’s a charm.” 

Clint so desperately wanted to hear Phil come undone. Was tugging at the clasp of his own belt when Bruce barged into the bathroom. Clint gave him a look that could kill. Bruce literally shrank back from the tight fury on Clint’s face, but he didn’t retreat.

“They set fire to a building,” Bruce said.

Clint stared at him for a long moment – shirtless, mud-caked, phone pressed against his ear and Phil’s uneven breathing setting off all of the best kind of tingles. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he said flatly.

“Trust me, I wish I was,” Bruce said apologetically. “It’s spreading, a little. We need to evacuate people.”

Clint closed his eyes, and took a calming breath, and nodded once. “Give me a sec to get this stuff back on,” he sighed, but Bruce was already backing out of the bathroom and closing the door behind him. As he pulled his boots back on, Clint said, “I’m sorry, but unless you can orgasm in the next thirty seconds...”

“Okay,” Phil replied. And Clint assumed that he meant ‘Okay, I understand, whatever’. But then Phil’s breath hitched again, and he bit back a groan, and Clint had to grab the bathroom counter to steady himself when he realised that Phil actually meant, ‘Okay. Thirty seconds? I can do that’.

“God you’re incredible,” Clint blurted after the soft, curling sounds had faded away.

“Says the superhero,” Phil replied, his voice a warm and relaxed rumble.

“So incredible,” Clint sighed happily. And then he ended the call, left Tony’s phone on the counter top, and sprinted into the hall and then out into the night. If he happened to elbow a drunken Norse god in the groin while they were saving the town, well, accidents happened.

Clint got back to New York three days later, after Thor and Loki had agreed to repair the town with the Avengers, in exchange for Loki’s hell-serpent being allowed to reside in the lake for a while. He’d showered and changed into his civvies before they’d left, and managed to convince Agent Hill that there was no point in holding a debriefing until the visitors to the realm got over their hangovers from the farewell (and good riddance) party the town had thrown. And then Clint stole Tony’s phone one more time.

“Hi,” he said when Phil picked up. “Can I see you?”

“For coffee?” Phil asked.

“Sure,” Clint replied, already sprinting for the door. “That can be one word for it.”


End file.
